Day: June 8, 2017

I can probably leave the same description for Lucha Underground for the next month. A 32 person tournament means 16 first round matches, and 16 divides into 4 matches for 4 shows pretty well. I’m not entirely sure which ones air when, and the preview gives no clues.

CMLL Azteca probably has the first half of the Gran Alternativa tournament, while Claro has the second half.

AAA has the second half of the Arena Aficion show. They skipped over the Faby Apache/Ayako Hamada match last week, but hopefully will show it this week. We won’t see the matches from Juarez for quite some time.

Último Guerrero ripped up and unmasked Niebla Roja again. UG still wants him to stop wearing it. Niebla Roja wanted a rematch for next week.

Niebla kicked out of the first fall pin, but they counted it anyway. Rush beat Niebla clean in the third, and left Niebla without his mask before taking a bow on the ramp.

Thoughts:

Niebla spinng forearm

With this show, I watched Rush/Mr. Niebla live, watched the first half of the show days later, and watched the second half of the show days after that. It really wasn’t work looking at three times, it was another show where it’s OKs all the way down only because it’s not worth thinking deeper.

The main event was hot for it lasted. Niebla Roja convinces me he might be able to have a good match with Ultimo Guerrero every time he does the spinning forearm, which looks a lot better than the spinning headscissors. Euforia actually dropped Mistico on a dive, so he’s now like 2499 for 2500.

Niebla/Rush was about as good as it’s going to be with Niebla working a normal match, which is no great praise. Niebla didn’t seem to be out of sorts but Rush didn’t seem to trust him to do much – even on the usual argument to set up a surprise cradle spot, Rush kept looking back to make sure Niebla would actually be there. Rush was not going full out, but he was trying, you don’t do a big senton to nowhere unless you actually want the match to be good. This one just felt like not a lot to it by the second time I watched it.

Rey Samuray

The fourth match was the most complete trios match with a surprise result, but nothing really worth going back for at this late date. The Dinamitas looked good for their time, but didn’t do much they don’t normally do. It was a surprise result for me because I’m just expecting the regular trio to win, but the técnicos are higher regarded. Stigma getting Sansón up for the Stigmatica should be impossible. Mascara 2000’s looking backwards, carefully rolling out of the ring bumps still kill me. Stuka’s suplex onto someone nearly killed one of the NGD. Tecnicos struggled with the usual double corner moonsault spot. Valiente never wins with the springboard reverse tope he finishes with her here, maybe he was just switching it up since he could’ve just as easily won with one of his submission if the usual Valiente Buster was going to a problem.

My only notes on the tercera were that Lestat & Rey Samuray looked good and no one else did.

The mat work in the second match was fine but it came in the killer long first fall and then the match just went on and on. There’s no reason early matches need to be going 19 minutes, none of them benefit from it.. Metálico, as guy who entertains beyond just his matches, might be a more valuable guy with Maximo gone, but he’s got to add more to what he’s doing in the ring to match his entrance and it might be too late for him anyway.

I was set to actually give a Good grade to the opener after two falls, and then they had a deadly boring third fall in usual CMLL opener style. I don’t know why the rudos took the match so far down, except that must be the law. Asturiano is really good and Zaeta Roja didn’t seem that far behind him tonight, and I wish we could see what they could do in an actual feud rather than the batch that are always in them. They looked super in the start of the second fall and generally felt like they were doing much better stuff than we usually get in this spot. Rey Apocalipsis looked wild and out of control whenever he was on offense, forcing in spots that weren’t really working, but at least he could keep up with the técnicos better than the DF early rudos.

CMLL likes to spread out major shows, so a Gran Prix on 09/01 suggests the CMLL Anniversary show is probably 09/22 and 09/29. (If they can announce the Gran Prix, it’d be smart if they announce that date as well.)

ESPN has an interview with Daniel Tibbetts, El Rey president, on Lucha Underground. It goes about 2,000 words and I’m not sure they nail him down to saying anything definite, it’s the usual “we’re high on the show but we absolutely do not want to talk about season 4 until after season 3 is over” and “all options are open (for PPV)” that doesn’t really say anything and gives you a sneaking feeling there’s not a big plan here. Saying they don’t want to talk about Season 4 until after Season 3 means we’re not going to have any resolution about where this is all going until well into pumpkin spice time. Tibbetts thought Lucha Underground going on hiatus was great, but then he’s also probably the guy who made that decision.

Traumas versus Black Warrior continues. Gallo Frances is working with Heddi Karaoui on other indie shows. This is is Latigo’s first IWRG match almost since he was still a Tortuga Ninja; he’s back representing Indy Nation.

DTU just ended their last tour and already has card out for the next. The Hidalgo shows are the ones which +LuchaTV usually makes the trip, so this has a better chance of turning up than the Queretaro show the next day. Lloyd, Tremon, and Crane are in from Game Changer Wrestling, while Mike Segura and Super Mega join in as X-LAW reps with two more to be announced.